Some of the most promising opportunities for innovation are where software interfaces with the physical world. These areas--transportation, supply chain, construction, manufacturing--are so interesting both because of how essential they are to life on Earth (and beyond) and how resistant they've been historically to easy technological solutions.

Getting things done in the real world, even with great software, is hard. You have to move materials from point A to point B, construct infrastructure and maintain structures that wear down from use and weather. Unlike digital products, experimentation with steel and circuits costs substantial time and money. On top of physical constraints, you also run into political and regulatory opposition that always seems to take a much stronger interest in tangible enterprise than digital.

Amazon and Tesla, the OG 21st century steel and circuits businesses, exemplify this rule. Modern digital technologies were prerequisites for their business models to exist but they won because they achieved massive economies of scale and honed operations to peak efficiency.

In the physical world, technology is an enabling force but the business still has to run on high-friction rails and interact with legacy systems. Grokking the first half of this recipe but not the second will set you up for sure failure. But if you're like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk and figure out how to harness the network effects of an online marketplace while building an operations business that's reliably cheaper and more convenient than everyone else's, you become unstoppable.

So it's no wonder that the seemingly limitless possibilities offered by web3 spark the imaginations of entrepreneurs everywhere. Tokens are remarkable tools for aligning network participants to cooperate effectively. And what are climate change, urban development and global supply chain if not large-scale coordination and optimization problems?

These enticing problem spaces have attracted web3 entrepreneurs since the 2017 hype cycle asking questions like: What if you put supply chains on the blockchain? Could we tokenize real estate? decentralizing a whole city? Even Vitalik is on board.

So will the web3 paradigm find success where so many web1 and web2 companies rarely did? I'm optimistic but can already see web3 builders falling into the same traps as their last gen predecessors. Here are some words of advice:

Map the digital-physical interface -- In a world governed by complex relationships between objects and people, it's often impossible to predict perfectly what will happen when you ship your product. You have to be extra thoughtful about where the gaps between intent and outcome may appear when your code starts dictating what should happen outside its digital purview.

Some questions that are sure to arise with any web3 real estate or supply chain project: How do you know the humans verifying the provenance of physical assets aren't cheating? Who is responsible for adjudicating ownership disputes? What happens when assets are lost, stolen or destroyed? Ask enough questions like this and you'll realize the depths of complexity any successful venture will have to contend with.

Respect the politics -- web3 may be a blue sky of unexplored potential, but unless you're litereally operating in uninhabited lands without any government jurisdiction, you'll have to contend with entangled and opaque political interests. CityCoins may end up learning this the hard way.

This idealistic project counts Miamicoin and partnership with Miami mayor Francis Suarez as one of their biggest successes to date. However, Suarez has long been the subject of investigations surrounding dirty politics in Miami government. How much of these allegations are true remains to be seen, but political minefields will abound anywhere there is this much money  and power at stake.

Equity and accessibility are essential -- this last point is relevant throughout the web3 ecosystem and especially so where so much is at stake. With so much money being made so rapidly, we have to do everything we can to ensure that opportunities to learn and get involved are open and inclusive. Diverse community representation is vital in projects that truly hope to make a positive impact in local government, real estate, healthcare or education.

I'm very optimistic that we will be able to do more good than ill here. Web3 is inherently community-centric, which is also an essential mindset when designing products within and for underrepresented and marginalized communities.

My hope is that as the web3 ecosystem develops, it becomes far more inclusive than past generations of technology ever were. We have a long way to go before we get there, but I'm rooting for us!